


Too Long in Shadow

by WithThisShield



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Addiction, Angst, Demonic Possession, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-01-04 14:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21199250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithThisShield/pseuds/WithThisShield
Summary: Nyssa loses everything when Kinloch falls: her home, her friends, her mind.Perhaps the Grey Wardens can give her a sense of purpose again… so long as her past, and a certain Ferelden templar, don’t catch up with her.





	1. Reasons to Stay

Firstfall, 9:29 Dragon

Solona was flirting with Ser Cullen again, which meant that somewhere else in Kinloch Hold, a mage was escaping.

Nyssa lurked in the shadows around the corner and watched. Solona was inquiring about his recent promotion to overseer for the Harrowings; her own Harrowing would be _his first,_ she pointed out in a suggestive tone that called up an instant flush to Ser Cullen’s face. Yup, she was definitely distracting him from something. Probably Anders.

Nyssa snuck away, back down the curve of the hall. Perhaps she could intercept him and talk him out of it. Anders had been let out of his basement cell only three weeks ago, and already he was desperate for another, stricter round of punishment? Nyssa had come to the Circle at the age of ten, and her six years here could be measured using the cycle of Anders’ escapes and recaptures and disciplines as if they were a calendar—each stage arriving in due course, as regular as the seasons. But this was too soon, too reckless.

She’d caught him casually loitering near a particular window in a side-room off the Great Hall just yesterday, so she knew where to look. Third-story windows were only lightly warded for the obvious reason that no one in the right mind would jump out of one. But the problem with locking a very smart mage in solitary confinement was that he had nothing to do but theorize and experiment and practice—might as well have locked him in a laboratory and ordered him to research how to escape the tower. He’d likely devised not one but multiple solutions to the height problem.

True to form, Anders was already through the ward and unlatching the tall stained-glass window when Nyssa caught up with him. He swung one leg out and sat straddling the window frame. “Hey, kid. Come to wish me luck?”

“Anders,” she sighed, exasperated, feeling for the moment like she was the one a decade older than him, and not the other way around. “You’re just making trouble for yourself. Last time they caught you, it was a year alone in a cell. Have you thought about what you’ll get next?”

He flashed a grin. “I don’t intend to get caught this time.”

She huffed. “Sure, but you say that every time.”

He waved a hand, dismissing her concern. “My plans improve with each attempt. You know, you could…” Anders faltered, chewing his lip in indecision. “You could come with me, kid. I can teach you the spells.”

“I’ll not shirk my duty. Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him.”

He shot her a look of pity laced together with disgust, which she did not understand at all.

“And anyway,” she continued, “I’ve got to fix this ward behind you, or they’ll notice something’s wrong and do a head count.” It might only buy him an extra twelve hours, but she suspected a well-motivated Anders could do a lot with twelve hours.

He tucked his chin, awkwardly grateful. “Thank you. And don’t take this the wrong way, but if I’m lucky, I won’t see you again, so… goodbye.”

Nyssa snorted. “Goodbye for now, at least.”

Flashing her one last grin, he leaned forward and grabbed the windowsill in both hands, then swung his other leg out. She’d thought maybe he would jump, but instead he climbed down the tower’s stone exterior like a cat backing down a tree trunk. His hands and the toes of his boots glowed faintly with the spell that turned an awkward, scrappy mage into an expert climber.

Leaning out to watch him disappear down into the darkness below, she felt a sudden, panicked pang of regret—_should’ve gone with him, too late now_—but no, she had made the right choice. Hadn’t she? Of course she had.

Nyssa pulled the window shut, latched it, and cast a replacement ward. Her decision was the only sensible one, she was sure of it. She would honor her parents’ wishes and perform her duty to the Circle. She belonged in Kinloch Hold, where the mages were her family and the templars kept her safe.

Everything would be fine.

* * *

Wintermarch, 9:30 Dragon

Six weeks passed, and the templars still hadn’t brought Anders home. Nyssa hoped it was because he’d evaded capture, and not because he’d gotten himself killed, but it was difficult not to worry.

Solona’s Harrowing had come and gone, so that at least was a relief. One of her friends was safe, though Nyssa spotted her flirting repeatedly with Ser Cullen again.

If Nyssa were inclined to think of templars _that_ way, which she most certainly wasn’t, but _if_ she were then she might have to admit that there was something lovely about Cullen. Not so much right now, with Solona methodically reducing him to a stammering, self-conscious, flush-faced youth, but with a sword in his hand he could be quite focused and graceful.

On numerous occasions, she’d watched from a window as he sparred with Ser Merys or Ser Bran outside on the broad terrace beneath the tower’s flying buttresses. The apprentices would place bets with their assigned chores, since none of them had any money. Nyssa always bet on Ser Merys out of feminine solidarity. Kinnon would bet on Ser Bran even though he lost more than he won, because apparently _that dry wit of his should count for something_, and he would tease Jowan for his indecisiveness when he abstained from the betting pool. Solona also never placed bets, but she watched the sparring matches with a strange intensity, as if she were memorizing something important.

Then later she’d unleash an absolutely ruthless flirting technique upon the templars. Even so, it was a bit of a mystery how Cullen could be so competent in a fight and so completely hopeless when a pretty girl spoke with him. Nyssa watched from the shadows as he literally _fled his post_ to get away from Solona’s temptations, rushing right past where Nyssa hid without even noticing her.

Meanwhile, Jowan was not-so-coincidentally absent from the apprentice level, but Nyssa decided not to stick her nose into his business. She’d never much gotten along with Jowan—if he wanted to make trouble for himself, he was welcome to it.

So Nyssa was not in the least surprised when she overheard a commotion in the large hall between the apprentice quarters and the library. She was a little curious to see how it all turned out, though, so she went to investigate.

Ser Merys stood in the doorway with a puzzled expression, her hand relaxing away from her sword hilt as if she’d just arrived to find the action already over. Ser Merys was one of the nice ones, like Ser Cullen. There were a few templars whom Nyssa knew to avoid being alone with—Ser Carroll in particular would get handsy if no one was watching—but Merys had always been kind to her.

Nyssa crept up beside her and spoke in a loud whisper. “Are those… Grey Wardens?”

Ser Merys jumped, and had the good grace to look sheepish at having been caught eavesdropping, but that didn’t stop her from sharing the gossip. “There’s to be a battle against the darkspawn horde at Ostagar. The Grey Wardens are here to collect more mages for King Cailan’s troops.”

Solona, of course, was right there in the thick of things, standing with the group at the top of the basement stairs. Knight-Commander Greagoir and First Enchanter Irving were engaged in a heated debate with the Warden, whose name was Duncan, apparently. Hanging in the background like Duncan’s too-small shadow, a dwarf woman shifted her weight from foot to foot, though Nyssa couldn’t tell from her expression whether she was anxious or impatient.

From their spot lurking in the doorway, Nyssa couldn’t make out every word, but she heard enough to know they were debating on the matter of recruiting Solona to the Grey Wardens. The thought of it gave Nyssa an odd twinge of nausea, like a snake coiling in her gut: _they’re all leaving me behind_. First Anders, now Solona… but no, it would be childish to make this all about herself.

Interrupting her thoughts, Ser Merys made an appreciative noise in her throat. “That man can conscript _me_ any day.”

Nyssa looked at her askance. “Seriously? I thought the Wardens were off to fight a darkspawn horde, like, _imminently_.”

Ser Merys tilted her head in a gesture that meant, _I’d shrug if I wasn’t wearing forty pounds of plate armor_. “That part would be fun, too, I imagine.”

Smothering a laugh, she said, “Your talents are wasted on us, Ser Merys.”

“Mm, don’t I know it.” Ser Merys straightened, stepping away from the doorframe on which she’d been leaning. “All right, back to your studies, before someone asks why I haven’t shooed you away yet.”

Nyssa stuck out her tongue, but she went.

* * *

Perched on the edge of Solona’s new bed in the junior enchanters’ dormitory, Nyssa ignored the occasional disapproving glance from Harrowed mages who didn’t appreciate an apprentice invading their space. She had to wait here, to make sure she got the chance to say goodbye to Solona.

But when Solona finally arrived, she simply flopped on the bed beside Nyssa instead of reaching for a travel bag.

“You’re not packing.”

Solona leaned back on her hands. “Nope.”

“Why aren’t you going with them?” Nyssa demanded. “The Warden offered, right—to recruit you? I thought you were all about getting out of the Circle.”

“Well there is the minor complication that Wardens lead short, brutal lives.” Solona sighed. “And anyway, if I leave, I won’t be in a position to help other people escape anymore.”

“Everyone’s whispering about how Jowan used blood magic to get away. Is that true?”

Solona fiddled with the enchanted pearl ring she always wore on her middle finger. “Yes.”

“I wouldn’t have thought he had the guts to teach himself forbidden spells, let alone the guts to leave you holding the bag like that.” Nyssa couldn’t help the worried frown that crept up on her face. “Irving won’t be able to smooth this over, even if you are his favorite. They’ll put you in solitary for this, like they did with Anders.”

“I know.”

“Then for the love of Andraste, _why, _Sol? What you’re doing just stirs up trouble for everyone—but you, most of all.”

“Oh?” Solona raised her eyebrows. “If you disapprove so much, why are you always covering for me? Sneaking around and lying to the templars.”

“I _never_ lie to the templars,” Nyssa contested hotly.

Solona laughed at that. “Sure, you just selectively omit information you know they’d want to hear.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” she huffed. Solona was rather like the sister she’d never had, which sometimes included an unfortunate amount of teasing. Now, though, the other girl turned serious.

“It’s not a bad thing, sweetness.” Solona put her hands on Nyssa’s cheeks, which was a little irritating given that she was only four years older and Nyssa wasn’t a child anymore, but mostly it felt nice. “You always tell the truth, _and_ you keep your friends’ secrets, both of which are admirable qualities. Promise me you won’t let anyone take that from you, not even me and my cynicism.”

“Okay,” Nyssa mumbled. “I promise.”

“Besides,” Solona said, pulling away and returning to their original subject, “who in their right mind would want to go to Ostagar and fight a horde of darkspawn? Sounds dreadful.”

_Ser Merys, apparently_, Nyssa didn’t say, because she kept her friends’ confidences. Instead she replied, “I can’t even imagine how horrible that would be.”

* * *

Two months later, Nyssa was in the library when the screaming started.


	2. Ten Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the demons have fun, and everyone else decidedly does not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for violence, physical torture, minor character deaths

Drakonis, 9:30 Dragon

Anders and Solona had done a thorough inventory of the best hiding places throughout Kinloch Hold; Nyssa didn’t know all their nooks and crannies, but she knew enough, and it kept her alive. She waited and hid and slipped from one room to the next, only engaging the enemy if she could get a single demon alone and freeze it before any of its brethren noticed. She couldn’t really tell if her efforts made a difference, but it felt good to be _doing_ something amidst all the blood and gore and chaos, and it certainly couldn’t make things worse.

Senior Enchanter Wynne was protecting the children on the first floor, along with Petra, Kinnon, and Keili. They, at least, might survive, if Nyssa kept the demons from dogpiling on Wynne’s barrier and exhausting her mana reserve.

She hadn’t been alone at first. Niall hatched a plan to recover the Litany of Adralla from the Great Hall, and Senior Enchanter Leorah knew a spell to open the sealed display case where it was kept. They’d allowed Nyssa to tag along behind them, watching their backs as they snuck through the demon-infested enchanters’ level toward the stairs.

Nyssa tripped over Senior Enchanter Sweeney—or rather, the _top half _of Senior Enchanter Sweeney—and fell to her knees in a puddle of gore. She scrambled back to her feet, but the horrible stench stayed with her, and she retched up her dinner.

Niall snatched up Sweeney’s blood-spattered but undamaged staff, then pressed his own into Nyssa’s hands. “You need a weapon.”

“I’ve not been trained.” No Circle mage was ever allowed to lay a hand on a staff until after they’d passed their Harrowing.

Niall’s lips twisted into a grim smile. “Then this shall be quite educational.”

The stairwell leading up to the third floor was practically wall-to-wall demons. Their position at the lower door gave them decent cover, but it was a long, brutal, wearying process to clear the stairs and gain entry to the Great Hall. By the time they were finally huddled around the display case with Leorah picking the magical locks, Nyssa was exhausted. Her blond hair was plastered to her face with sweat, and she felt like a wrung-out rag, every drop of mana spent as soon as it replenished.

Niall put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re done, kid. Report back to Wynne.”

“No, I… I’m okay, I can keep going. I just need a minute…”

Leorah exchanged a worried look with Niall. “There’s no time. They’ve probably sent word requesting an Annulment already. We have to get to Uldred and put an end to this.”

Niall nodded and ushered Nyssa back toward the stairs. “Stay out of sight, don’t engage unless you have to, stay alive. And don’t worry, this’ll all be over soon.”

Bolstered with the Litany of Adralla, Niall and Leorah went forth into the chaos of the upper floors. But that was hours ago, and the promised _soon_ never arrived.

They were dead. Nyssa tried not to dwell on it, tried not to imagine Niall as a torn-apart corpse on the floor of the templars’ quarters, but there really wasn’t much else to do while she wedged herself into the dark, narrow space behind a bookshelf and rested.

All the candles had burnt down over the course of the night, but dawn was starting to glow through the high windows. She’d evaded capture for ten hours. Which, as it turned out, was plenty of time to come to terms with the inevitability of her own death. Nyssa almost felt bored with the idea, at that point.

But when a terror abomination finally broke her staff and got his hands on her, she _wasn’t_ prepared to be dragged upstairs to the anteroom below the Harrowing Chamber and tossed onto the floor in front of a templar.

A _living_ templar.

“Cullen?”

He was on his knees, trapped inside a cylindrical barrier, with a considerable amount of blood staining his robe where it bunched over his right thigh… but when he lifted his chin, there was defiance in his eyes.

It seemed to take him a moment to recognize her as human. “Nyssa?”

The terror abomination seemed delighted at this. “Oh, good! So you are acquainted with the little mouse I caught for us to play with.”

Cullen’s jaw clenched, and he shook with helpless fury. It was obvious this was not the first horror he’d been forced to watch. Nyssa followed his gaze behind her to the mangled corpse with the long dark hair, the face unrecognizable… but the hand splayed across the floor tiles wore a pearl ring. Nyssa choked on a sob.

She crawled close enough to clutch at Solona’s cold fingers, and to gently take the ring from her and slip it on herself, one final act of borrowing strength. Her mana reserve was drained, and her body was physically exhausted from repeated waves of surging adrenaline. It was all she could do to get her feet under her and stand.

Nyssa took a breath, then said in a steady tone, “Well, get on with it and kill me, then.”

“I don’t want you to _die_, silly child. I want him to watch as I corrupt you.”

She stared. This was… not good. Her body fought valiantly to scrape up some dregs of panic, but her heart just fluttered weakly in her chest, too exhausted for another round of mortal terror.

The abomination grabbed her face in one grotesque hand, holding her by the chin like a disobedient student. “You will say yes, and become one of us.”

“I will not! You are everything I swore to never be.” Nyssa tried to jerk away but the demon’s hold on her was implacably strong.

“Oh-ho, so we have a true believer here. Some motivation, then, perhaps.”

The abomination released her and stepped through the barrier as if it didn’t exist. Then Terror grabbed Cullen’s left arm, shucked the gauntlet from his hand, and broke his index finger with an audible snap. Cullen gritted his teeth but made no sound.

“You’ll get no satisfaction from us,” he spat, but the abomination ignored him.

“So many fragile little pieces. Shall we find out how many I can break before he dies?”

Nyssa felt the blood drain from her face, and she tasted bile in the back of her throat.

“You don’t like that? Would you prefer I rip off the pieces?” The abomination gave Cullen’s broken finger a speculative tug, as if testing it for potential removal. Cullen choked on a cry of pain. “Of course you don’t have to choose—why not both?”

A vicious squeeze, and something else in Cullen’s hand snapped. His breaths turned fast and shallow, and he was trying to swallow the keening noise that escaped from his throat. His eyes were wide and wet with agony.

“Stop. Stop!” Nyssa couldn’t bear it. “Swear you won’t hurt him anymore, and I’ll… I’ll do it.”

“No, Nyssa. Don’t,” Cullen hissed.

The abomination smiled. “I swear I will never lay my hands upon your dear templar again.” As if to prove it, he released Cullen’s mangled hand and stepped out of the barrier.

Cullen pressed his arm tight against his side and hunched over in pain, but his gaze locked on Nyssa’s, amber eyes impossibly clear. “Please, no.”

She felt the abomination’s breath, hot and foul close to her ear. “Close your eyes and open your mind, or our pact is void, and I get to go back to breaking all those little bones. Snap, snap, snap. I could make him last for _hours_ if I work my way in from the digits carefully enough.”

Her own breath hitching in her lungs, Nyssa closed her eyes, shutting herself off from Cullen’s imploring look. She could feel something scratching at the margins of her thoughts, eager, seeking entry—the abomination had a friend already selected for her.

“Yes,” Terror murmured, “you need only relax, relent, unlock the doors of your mind. It’s effortless, just let it happen.”

There was something hypnotic about the words, and after a long, sleepless night of hiding and fighting, it was hard to remember why she’d ever resisted in the first place. Yes, this would be so much easier. No more pain, no more struggle, no more fear. _Yes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight canon-divergence here, since it's never implied that Cullen was physically tortured. But given that the demons turned the tower into a total gore-fest, it doesn't seem likely that he would've survived without any injuries.


	3. Fear Itself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the future Hero of Ferelden arrives much too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picks up immediately after Chapter 2.
> 
> TW for psychological torture, minor character deaths

Between one heartbeat and the next, Nyssa was suddenly no longer alone inside her own skull. A demon scrabbled around in her mind, like a spider the size of a mabari—fast and excitable and horrifyingly creepy. A _fearling_, it seemed to know itself as, though its thoughts were slippery and hard to define. As the Fearling’s disorientation settled, it began to pay attention to its new surroundings, and oh how _delicious_ were Cullen’s fears, rich and ripe and so numerous! The demon’s focus surged toward him, forcing Nyssa to share in its elation even as the feeling sickened her.

Apparently Fearlings weren’t particularly subtle creatures, so it latched onto the most obvious and concrete images from Cullen’s thoughts and gleefully reflected them back at him. Nyssa stopped being Nyssa and became a mirror, instead:

she was Solona being tortured to death

she was Ser Merys falling beneath three demons, ripped limb from limb

she was a blood mage draining their veins to call forth a swarm of demons

she was Ser Bran swinging his sword blindly after the demons took his eyes

she was Cullen himself—or what little of him would remain, when he finally broke.

The mind that was Nyssa tried desperately to withdraw from this. It wasn’t _her_ writhing on the stone floor, enduring a dozen excruciating deaths, it was just a body—someone else’s body, maybe the Fearling could have it, she hardly wanted it anymore. But she was trapped, as if the demon held her under water, always drowning but never quite reaching the sweet release of death.

Distantly, she became aware that Terror was _laughing_. Oh, of course, this was exactly what the abomination had devised. There would be no need to touch the templar anymore, now that Cullen and Nyssa were torturing each other, neither of them capable of putting an end to it as they spiraled deeper into his trauma.

Well, screw that asshole abomination. If she was going to be stuck in this Maker-forsaken body, then she’d use it to her advantage. Nyssa gritted her teeth and rolled to get her hands and knees under her. All she had to do was escape Cullen, and the pain would stop. But Terror kicked her, sending her sprawling across the flagstones, and then pinned her to the floor with a foot against the small of her back.

With Nyssa’s voice, the Fearling crooned, “Why didn’t you save me, Cullen? Why are you so weak and useless? Really, the world would’ve been better had you never been born.”

Cullen covered his face with his forearms and screamed into his armor.

It went on like this for… a while. Pain became her constant companion, along with the nauseating pleasure that bled through into her mind from the Fearling. At some point, the crushing weight of the abomination’s foot lifted, but Nyssa didn’t know anymore if she even _had_ hands and feet, let alone how to use them. Her awareness of Cullen gradually mutated until he seemed not so much another person as an inanimate wellspring of inescapable misery.

Now Nyssa was a strange girl who had never been here in the Circle. This _Mia_ suffered and died because Cullen was literally the worst protector who ever lived. The blood mages got out of the Circle and spread demons across Ferelden and it was _all his fault_. But wait. That wasn’t real, was it? That hadn’t happened. Nyssa didn’t even know anyone named Mia. It was an illusion—just the Fearling plucking thoughts from an exhausted mind and weaving them into a gruesome tapestry. _Stop, stop it,_ she demanded, wrestling the Fearling for control.

_But so many tasty fears!_ it chittered back at her. _He trembles and sobs when we show them to him!_

She imagined grabbing onto a spidery leg and yanking the demon off-balance. She imagined sinking her fingers into the mirror illusion and ripping it down like a window curtain. She imagined pouring _herself _into her limbs until there was no room for anyone else to steal control. The mirror wavered and slipped as Nyssa battered the Fearling back, cornering it in her mind, and her body groaned, “Ugh!”—though she wasn’t entirely sure which of its residents had made the sound.

The abomination gave her a bored look. “You’re not as fun as I’d hoped.” Terror left her there like a broken toy and ascended the stairs, speaking to someone above. “Where did Desire wander off to? I thought she wanted to play with our last templar before we kill him.”

There was something… there was something she’d meant to do, to make it all stop. Hard to focus on anything while the Fearling skittered through her thoughts, scrabbling to regain a foothold. Get away! Yes, she had to escape the gibbering fear machine behind the magic barrier. Now, while the abomination wasn’t paying attention and the Fearling had lost the reins.

Nyssa crawled on her stomach, dragging herself forward with her elbows, desperate for every inch of distance even as the Fearling screeched its protests in her brain. She squirmed over the threshold and out of the antechamber, and with Cullen out of sight, she managed to rally enough strength and balance to push up onto hands and knees. A hiding place, she needed a hiding place, before any more abominations took an interest in her.

Clawing her way into a half-empty wardrobe, Nyssa huddled in the dark like a wounded animal, her muscles twitching now and again as the Fearling tried to take control. At first the demon wrestled her constantly, requiring all her mental effort just to remain where she was, no room for errant thoughts with the demon’s persistent barrage demanding her attention. With time, she learned its modes of attack, its sneaky patterns of movement, and the challenge of maintaining control became if not easy, at least no longer all-consuming.

In the absence of the mirror’s illusory agony, the throbbing pain of a real injury made itself known. Questing beneath her robes with her fingers, she discovered four puncture wounds on her shoulder beneath her collar bone, from Terror’s taloned hand grabbing her, probably. Nothing to be done— her mana would gradually replenish, but even if she could find the mental focus to use it, Wynne had declared her hopeless at healing. Her interests had always leaned more toward alchemy.

But no, she shouldn’t think about that. With Leorah’s recent promotion to Senior Enchanter, Nyssa was supposed to start a formal apprenticeship in alchemical studies under her tutelage. Now Leorah was dead, her beloved laboratory in ruins. The quiet, satisfying future of intellectual pursuit that Nyssa had once taken for granted was now revealed to be a cruel lie. The thought of it felt like a dagger between her ribs.

After a while, she noticed the Fearling quieted. Its focus on returning to Cullen grew hazy, as if the memory of what it was supposed to be doing proved difficult to hold on to; Nyssa felt its motivation leach away, leaving behind a small, uncertain creature curled up in the back of her mind. Fearlings were servants to more powerful demons, and without a Terror or a Nightmare to issue commands, it was lost. It would wait to be told what to do, her Fearling seemed to decide.

Nyssa tried to consider what to do next, but she soon abandoned that line of thought. What did it matter, now? Uldred and his followers had thoroughly destroyed everything she knew, everything she _was. _Exhausted beyond measure, she floated down into a dazed state of not-quite-sleep.

Hours later, she was roused from her stupor by the sound of fighting. Reinforcements had arrived, and for one stupid, giddy moment her heart lifted at the thought of rescue. But then logic kicked in: no matter who had come, nobody wanted _her_ to live, not anymore. Not with a demon taking up residence in her mind. They would kill her—and maybe that was right, maybe she should let them do it—but when the heavy booted footsteps came near, she held her breath and prayed no one bothered to check this particular wardrobe.

No one did. For now at least, she was alive.

Alive, and more completely alone in the world than she’d known it was possible to be.


	4. From This Tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cullen is fairly certain this whole “rescue” thing is just a demon ruse.

Cullen gritted his teeth against the burst of hysterical laughter that wanted to crawl out of his throat when he saw what new material the demons had come up with. There were four of them, all told—or perhaps one abomination making him see four people? No way to know. As if it mattered. The funny part was that one of the four “people” looked like his childhood rival from templar training, Alistair, who had left before taking his vows to join the Wardens. How was this vision of Alistair planning to torture him—with stolen cheese and inappropriate jests?

_The boy is exhausted. And this cage, I… I’ve never seen anything like it, _another demon said softly, while wearing the face of Senior Enchanter Wynne, who was undoubtedly dead. _Rest easy, help is here._

Cullen hunched over the throbbing pain of his broken hand, but he stayed where he was on his knees, fighting the instinct to scramble away from the demons to the far side of his magic cell. He would fight them for every drop of satisfaction. “Enough visions! If anything in you is human, kill me now and stop this game.”

_He’s delirious, he’s been tortured, and has probably been denied food and water. I can tell, _said a third demon. _Here, I have a skin of—_

“Don’t touch me, stay away!” Cullen flinched, fearing the temptation of any form of kindness more than he feared pain. After Terror scraped his soul raw, it was Desire’s gentleness that had very nearly unraveled his mind. His jaw clenched, resisting the sick swell of need inside him that yearned toward the offered comfort. “Filthy blood mages, getting in my head… I won’t break, I’d rather die.”

In a surreal twist, the demons were now trying to convince him that they weren’t demons. What fresh torture was this? Dangling the lure of hope before his eyes? It was admittedly odd that only two of them wore familiar faces—aside from Wynne and Alistair, there was a red-haired Orlesian rogue and a pretty dwarven warrior, the latter of whom took the lead in Cullen’s torment.

Why was he arguing about the relative merits of allowing mages to live with some imaginary dwarf? Could this be real? The four people seemed so earnest, so… solid. No, this was probably some twisted game to make him believe he was on the cusp of rescue. But what could it hurt to share what he knew? He would play along for now, and see what happened.

By the time the barrier fell and the team of four returned from the Harrowing chamber with Senior Enchanter Irving, Cullen was only 40% sure this was real and not a blood magic induced hallucination. When Alistair pulled Cullen’s arm over his shoulders and helped him stand, he got a noseful of dank warrior sweat and his confidence rose to 70%, because he doubted demons would think to supply that particular sensory experience. Cullen had never in his life been so glad to smell another man.

Walking pulled at the open edges of his leg wound in a nauseating way, but he leaned into Alistair and bit down on the pain; if they left him now to go get a stretcher, he might very well lose his mind before they returned. It should have been humiliating to be seen like this by a former rival, to cling to his shoulders so desperately. When they were children, embarrassment had been Alistair’s weapon of choice against the too earnest, too dedicated Cullen, but he’d left that naïve boy on the fourth floor of the Tower amidst the corpses of his friends. The yawning empty void inside Cullen swallowed any humiliation he might have felt.

Alistair tried to speak to him, but the words were like slick, silver fishes wriggling through his fingers. He couldn’t catch a single one.

When they made it down to the main floor, Knight-Commander Greagoir was stunned to receive survivors. Cullen rallied his strength and managed to stay on his feet, some part of his brain latching onto the knowledge that—assuming any of this was real—there were important decisions to be made now. And Greagoir didn’t _know_, no one but Cullen could possibly understand what had truly happened up there. It was his duty to speak for the dead.

Cullen pressed the argument for Annulment, somehow forming coherent sentences, hearing his own words as if he were an observer floating outside his body. First Enchanter Irving must be either a fool or a blood mage, because he was spouting some nonsense about how _we will learn from this tragedy, and be strengthened by it. _The blasted dwarf woman recommended leniency, as if the Wardens had any right to dictate such matters, and Greagoir for some reason agreed.

Why would no one listen to him? There were abominations still alive in the Tower! Fine, fine then, Cullen would have to take care of it himself. He just needed… he needed a sword, and then he could go after the creature that murdered Nyssa, stole her face, and drove him mad for uncountable hours. He tried to walk back toward the stairs, but his leg gave out and he went down in a messy heap of armor—his traitorous body failing him yet again. Suddenly he wanted to weep from pain and shame and thirst and hunger, from relief at being alive, from the guilt that he’d survived when his more worthy brothers and sisters at arms had been slaughtered.

His shoulders shook beneath his pauldrons and he curled in on himself, and he couldn’t even care that the Wardens hadn’t left yet. He was a worthless broken thing and it didn’t matter if everyone knew.


	5. A Near Miss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nyssa regrets all the questions she never asked Anders.

It was night again when Nyssa finally snuck her way out of the tower, though she couldn’t be sure whether it was the second night or the third. Either way, she’d gone without water for long enough that her thirst seemed like a living thing, so loud and insistent it almost drowned out the Fearling’s voice.

Nyssa knew she shouldn’t drink unboiled lake water, an old childhood lesson drilled into her by her parents, but she couldn’t stop herself. Crouching in the dark between the jagged rocks at the base of the tower, she gulped fast and desperate from her cupped hands; the frigid water hit her stomach like a hammer and came immediately back up. When the wretching subsided, she had to try again, forcing herself to take slow sips.

Her thirst finally slaked, she sat back on her heels to think. Getting out of the tower and onto the rock outcrop upon which it sat was, of course, only the first hurdle. Anders probably knew five different terribly clever ways to get to shore, but Nyssa had never asked for such details. She had, however, grown up on the banks of a river. So swimming it was.

The Fearling, who had been sulking quietly for some time now, gave a mental kick of protest. _No, we will freeze and drown._

Under her breath, Nyssa muttered, “Well it’s that or get cleaved in two by a templar sword, so I’m taking my chances with Lake Calenhad.”

It was only Drakonis and the weather had not yet turned to spring in earnest, so the night air alone was enough to make her shiver uncontrollably. Submerging herself in the frigid waters would numb her limbs and sap what little strength she had left. The shore was farther away than she’d ever had to swim before, and six years had passed since last she’d been allowed to swim at all. Panic crested like a wave; the demon was right, this would kill her.

_See? Scary-bad death-trap!_

“Oh, shut up. Aren’t you supposed to _love_ scary things?”

_Not for us,_ the Fearling grumped.

Fire spells were not her area of expertise. On a good day, she could heat her own bathwater, but this was not a good day and Lake Calenhad was considerably larger than a bathtub. Nyssa ran her thumb over the band of Solona’s ring; it had a constitution enchantment, which wasn’t nothing, though she fervently wished her friend had gone for cold resistance instead. But standing there wishing for things she didn’t have wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Her long robes would catch around her legs and drag her down, so she stripped to her undergarments, bundled up her robes along with her thin cloth slippers, and tied the tight bundle across her shoulders with her belt.

_Bad idea_, whined the demon, and Nyssa really couldn’t argue as she jumped off the rocks into the shockingly cold lake.

* * *

An eternity later, she dragged her numbed body onto dry land.

If it hadn’t been for the crumbled remains of the imperial highway that once connected the Tower to the shore, which gave her something to cling to now and again, she surely would have drowned. Even so, she was well past shivering and could feel nothing of her hands and feet. It was a terrible idea for several reasons, but Nyssa saw no alternative other than to call up a small fire to warm her limbs.

She was spending precious mana she might need later. She was making light that gave away her position to anyone who might be looking out a Tower window. None of the arguments against it seemed to matter, because the warmth felt like _life_ and the lake felt like _death_, and she would get up and move out of sight just as soon as she could stand. Really. Any minute now.

Once she managed to hide herself in the relative safety of the trees, Nyssa rung out her robe as best she could and struggled into the wet garment, which frankly made her _more_ cold, but at least she didn’t feel quite so exposed. But wait, she _did_ know a solution to this! _Oh, bless you Petra, I could kiss you_—the laundry-drying spell Petra was so proud of, that Solona had teased her mercilessly about, was now going to literally save Nyssa’s life.

Clothed and dry was definitely an improvement, but the cold still sat heavily in her bones, telling her it would be a lovely idea to curl up and go to sleep just anywhere, really. _Lies_, Fearling hissed in response to that idea. _If we sleep now, we die._ Movement would raise her temperature, and she needed to put some distance between herself and the templars before morning, anyway, so she forced herself to walk.

It was not comfortable. The cloth slippers she’d always worn in the Tower were enough to protect against the chill of stone floors, but they were nearly useless out in the world. The rocky dirt road quickly shredded the soles and left her feet bruised and bleeding. She needed real shoes, and a cloak, and food—Maker, how her empty stomach twisted in knots.

So when she saw firelight through the trees, giving away the location of a nearby camp, she gravitated closer despite herself. Asking for help was out of the question; even if these people were, by some miracle, the sort who would be inclined to help a random girl half-dead from hypothermia, she was dressed in Circle mage robes. Very blood-stained Circle mage robes. There could be no doubt of where she’d come from. But maybe if she were clever, Nyssa could steal from them? If it was a group, they’d probably have someone on watch through the night, though.

_Sleep spell_, the Fearling suggested. _Then they can have nightmares—what fun!_

Nyssa had never before used any spell on someone without their consent, exempting demons of course, and she didn’t feel good about starting down that path now. But she needed supplies to survive. Anders would admonish her to be practical, to look out for herself, and it rather seemed he had been right about the foolishness of blindly trusting that the Circle would take care of her. Steeling her nerve, she crept closer and peered through the underbrush.

A young warrior sat at the campfire, ostensibly keeping watch although his eyelids were drooping. He had the build of a templar but was clad in scale mail, his sword and shield set aside nearby. It didn’t require a very strong sleeping spell to slump him over the line into unconsciousness. Terror had called her a little mouse, she thought wryly; well, little mice steal your cheese when you’re not looking.

She crept into the camp and began pilfering whatever she could find without disturbing the tents and their sleepers within. Set just outside one the tents, she found a pair of women’s boots that fit her decently well, and there was a satchel of rations near the fire beside the remains of their dinner. Later, maybe, she’d feel bad about stealing their food. She grabbed a waterskin, too, because she never wanted to be that thirsty again.

“Thief,” said a musical female voice right behind her.

Nyssa just about jumped out of her skin, whirled around, and blasted the woman with a messy sleep spell. Knocked out on the ground, the woman—the Chantry sister…?—looked young and a bit vulnerable with her short red hair fanning around her face, but a dagger had fallen from her grip. The dagger and the sneaking seemed rather at odds with the Chantry robes, but what did Nyssa know.

Someone stirred in the nearest tent, perhaps awoken by the sound of the Chantry sister hitting the dirt, and Nyssa’s pulse spiked again. Her mana was dangerously low after that second sleep spell, and if the whole camp roused she’d be in no condition to defend herself. She ran.

Nyssa had to put distance between herself and the camp, that much was clear—enough distance, hopefully, to make retribution not worth their while. But beyond that, what was she to do next? Where did apostates go after they escaped? Another question she found herself wishing she’d asked Anders—_as far as you can, as fast as you can,_ he probably would’ve quipped, but that didn’t help her now.

_Home_, was the only answer that came to mind, ill-conceived as it was. She couldn’t guess how her parents would react to their daughter showing up unexpectedly after six years, an apostate on the run, potentially bringing trouble behind her. But they were the only people in all of Thedas from whom she might reasonably expect to receive a welcome. Well, them and Anders, if he was still alive and she had any way of finding him, which she did not.

Even before she was sent to the Circle, Nyssa had precious little experience with travel, but she knew from seeing maps that she needed to go north. The village where she grew up was along a major trade route between Orlais and Ferelden, so surely there would be road signs, and if she was careful, she could probably ask for directions without raising suspicion. Yes, it was a plan: she would go home.

Nyssa set out for Crestwood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, Leliana! Bye, Leliana. Now that we’re out of the Circle Tower, this fic won’t be following the main events of DA:O, but will instead explore a bit of what’s happening elsewhere during the Blight, before moving to Kirkwall.


	6. Endurance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cullen recovers at the Greenfell Chantry… for loose definitions of ‘recovery.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for rape and PTSD-related suicidal ideation. Seriously, Cullen is not in a good place after Kinloch.

Cloudreach, 9:30 Dragon

Cullen sat on a stone bench in the chantry garden; it was serene, it was beautiful. He wanted to die.

The memories felt more real than the garden in front of his eyes. After Terror grew bored of Cullen, and the abomination that had been Nyssa finally left him, it was the desire demon’s turn. Desire pinned him to the floor and played him like a lute, and his traitorous body _responded_. Every part of him hurt, even the pleasure was a kind of sick pain, and he didn’t know what was real anymore, and he begged for it to stop.

_You say ‘no,’ but your cock says ‘yes, more,’ _the demon crooned as she defiled him. With a languid curiosity, she tried wearing different faces, as if she were shopping for a new cloak—Solona of course, and Merys, and that fool girl Nyssa—testing each one to see which would shatter the last fragments of his sanity.

He was twenty-two years old and hadn’t yet been with a woman properly—and now he never will.

“Cullen,” someone said from nearby, with an urgency that suggested it wasn’t the first time. He looked up to see Greagoir lowering himself onto the other end of the garden bench.

“Knight-Commander?” He ought to have stood and snapped a salute, but it was far too late for that now. “I didn’t know you’d come to Greenfell.”

“Passing through.” A transparent lie, but Cullen let it go unchallenged. “How are you?”

_I want to die_, he didn’t say. _I’ve been befouled, and now I’m sullying this holy place with my mere presence._

“I am… healing well, they tell me.”

A partial truth at best. The healing process had not gone smoothly.

“You’ll never hold a shield again if you don’t let us fix that hand,” the senior healer told him, and logically, he’d known the man was right. But they wanted to _touch_ him and they had a _mage_ on staff, and soon there was yelling and panicking and Cullen was swinging his one good fist. They held him down, poured a sleeping drought down his throat, and healed him while he was knocked out.

Templars need two working hands.

Greagoir said, “I’ve already asked the healers for their report. I want to know how _you_ feel.”

“I have my strength back.” He would not run his fingers over the scars on his inner arm where the blood mages had cut him, drained him, took the strength from his veins and crafted it into demons, _he would not_.

Greagoir reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but Cullen shrank away from the touch like a kicked dog. He couldn’t bear any kind of contact, because the demon had ruined even that for him. It had taken a while, but Desire eventually realized her mistake: she had defaulted to arousal, when Cullen’s distraught mind craved nothing more than safety and comfort. So she soothed his wounds with her tongue and rearranged the mess she’d made of his clothes, replacing all the pieces of armor with the utmost care. She rocked him like a child and whispered sweetly in his ear and petted him with soft hands.

Cullen shuddered in the demon’s arms, too weak to pull away, some small part of his mind clinging to the sense of wrongness even as the rest desperately wanted to relent.

“I would have broken. I was… very close to madness, by the time those Wardens arrived.”

Greagoir gave him a steady look. “Everyone breaks. You held on longer than anyone expected was possible. When Warden Sereda insisted on going in, I… I had no hope left for survivors, Cullen. It’s a miracle, and I thank the Maker you’re still with us.”

_Not all of me is_, he thought. _Two working hands, sure, but my mind…_

“I have a favor to ask, Knight-Commander.”

“Mm?”

He fought the memory, but it rose to the surface of his mind anyway: Nyssa lying on the floor, eyes lambent with the glow of demonic possession. _Why didn’t you save me, Cullen? _But now, in the present, he said, “There’s a particular mage. An abomination, still unaccounted for, I can tell from the way everyone deflects when I ask about it.” He paused, nervous. “I want—I _need _to put her down, but they refuse to lend me her phylactery.”

“Cullen…”

“No! It’s been weeks, the abomination could be anywhere by now, just out in the world and free to…” He sucked a breath in through his nose, let it out slow and controlled. If he let himself become _agitated_ as the senior healer called it, Greagoir would never listen to him.

As it was, the older man sighed. “They tell me you can’t abide your armor. What am I to do, send you out to track an abomination in your shirt sleeves and trousers?”

“I could wear light armor instead.”

“That is hardly the point, my boy. You are not ready for field work. Wouldn’t you rather go home, spend some time with your family? It would be a simple matter to give you dispensation for a leave of absence. Just until you’re well again.”

“No. I am well enough.” Or as well as he expected to ever be, at least. The thought of his parents and siblings seeing him like this, seeing the ruined creature he’d been reduced to, gave him a flash of nauseous panic.

Greagoir reached down to the satchel he’d set by his feet. When he lifted the bag, its contents shifted with a suspicious clank, and he pulled out a vambrace; Cullen recognized it as the right-hand piece from his own custom-fit templar set. The armor he’d worn at Kinloch. The armor Desire had stripped him of, and then dressed him in like a doll. Cullen squeezed both hands into fists to hide the tremor that passed through him, ignoring how the left one still ached badly from the tension.

“Your armor can’t hurt you. It’s meant to protect you.”

Cullen looked at the vambrace in Greagoir’s hands as if it were a snake. “It didn’t.”

“Will you try?” Greagoir paused. “You know I can’t put you on active duty until I see you’re fit.”

Reluctantly, he forced himself to take the vambrace from Greagoir, then slid his arm through the straps and tightened them down. _Gentle purple hands stroking, soothing, adjusting straps._ Cullen pressed his arm tight around his stomach, as if the vambrace covered a wound. A cold sweat prickled at his temples. His breaths turned fast and shallow. _I can tell you like it_, Desire whispered in his ear. No—no, it’s only… it’s only a piece of armor.

“You have survived much,” Greagoir said softly. “This, too, you can endure.”

Yes, he could do this, he _had _to do this. He would learn to tolerate armor again, and then he would hunt down the monster that was wandering Thedas, wearing Nyssa’s body like a suit. It was the very least he could do to honor the dead.

_I may yet have some use after all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Without proper psychological help, Cullen’s stewing in some very unhealthy misconceptions here. So to be totally clear: 1) what happened to him is NOT his fault, 2) being a rape survivor doesn’t make him unclean, and 3) while medical treatment is important, it’s also good to at least try to not re-traumatize victims.
> 
> Canonically, Cullen should be 19 years old here, but I’ve aged him up a little. It never made sense to me that Meredith would promote an inexperienced, unstable teenager to Knight-Captain.


	7. Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nyssa does not quite receive the welcome she expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m playing a bit fast-and-loose with chronology here. The start of this chapter happens before Chapter 6.

Nyssa wasn’t proud that her only source of income came from looting corpses she found along the roadside, but loot the corpses she did. Not being a master thief, opportunities for stealing food (and getting away with it) were few and far between—so while not exactly ideal, it was usually preferable to buy provisions with dead people’s pocket change.

It was fine. She was used to it. The smell and the feel of old, tacky blood didn’t bother her anymore, she told herself. Why there were so _many_ corpses just lying around on the roadways of Ferelden was a question that did nag at her a bit, but like with the Chantry-sister-assassin, what did Nyssa know? She’d been locked in a tower for more than a third of her life; maybe this was all normal.

At least she hadn’t stolen her traveling clothes from a corpse; those had come off a clothesline. Without a staff and dressed in a rough-spun brown tunic and breeches, she looked perfectly anonymous and nonmagical.

She tried to feel guilty about stealing the clothes, but what was that compared to the guilt of all the people she failed to save at Kinloch? She’d said yes to the Fearling to protect Cullen, but by the end she’d forgotten all about that and just crawled away and _left him there _at the mercy of the demons. He was probably dead, and she doubted his death had been either quick or dignified. _I could make him last for_ _hours, _Terror had crooned, and in the three days it took her to walk to Crestwood, there was ample time to imagine in detail a variety of gruesome fates.

_It’s no fun to have such thoughts ourself, _the Fearling grumbled._ There’s no one here to see the reflection._

Nyssa frowned, confounded by the word _ourself_. The demon didn’t seem to understand that they were two separate entities occupying the same body, and she had no desire to merge psyches with her mental hitchhiker.

Soon enough, she turned around a bend in the road and her childhood home came into view. Upper Crestwood sat on a hill above the spill zone, but those houses were reserved for the kinds of folks who could afford their own well. If you had to cart all your water from the river in a bucket, you built for convenience closer to the source. Though her parents were better off than many of their neighbors, the tavern still sat right on the river’s edge, on account of how much water their brewery required.

Nyssa followed the road as it wound down the hill into Lower Crestwood, and she cut through the village toward the river, her feet carrying her almost automatically in the right direction. Strange how easy it was to navigate after all this time, but the village hadn't changed as much as she'd expected.

Her apprehension grew as she approached the front door of the tavern. It would be fine, she told herself. They’d loved her once, and even after her magic manifested, her father had sent letters, which was more than many of the apprentices got from their families. She took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and stepped inside: the main room of the tavern, with the bar on the left and the enormous hearth on the right and the clusters of tables and chairs between, was so familiar it sent a pang of longing through her.

“We don’t open ‘til noon,” called a voice from the back, her mother’s voice, and suddenly Nyssa felt frozen to the floor just inside the threshold.

Joslyn Brewer emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a rag, more gray in her blond hair and more wrinkles at the corners of her eyes than Nyssa remembered. Joslyn looked at her for a few long seconds with a lack of recognition before her eyes widened.

“Nyssa?” she breathed, dropping the rag on the floor and then bending to snatch it up again. “What—I mean, is that you? What are you doing here?”

Nyssa’s father, Patrick Brewer, came out into the main room, asking, “Darling, did—” then, when his eyes fell on Nyssa, “Maker’s breath!”

Patrick moved as if to close the distance, perhaps to embrace her, but Joslyn grabbed his sleeve to hold him back. He threw her a confused look and something passed unspoken between them; the tension in the room rose.

Nyssa cleared her throat and shifted her weight nervously. “The Circle was… attacked. There’s nowhere else for me to go.”

“You can’t stay,” her mother said too quickly, a hint of revulsion clear in her tone.

She froze again. “What?”

“I mean, well, there’s no space. The rented rooms have been over capacity since the Blight started, what with all the refugees heading north.”

Patrick rested a hand on his wife’s back. “Surely we could put an extra sleep roll somewhere, for a little while at least.”

“What will we tell the neighbors?” Joslyn persisted.

“She’s our niece, come to help run the brewery. We can call her Kiera.” Nyssa did have a cousin named Kiera in Denerim, though they’d never met.

“Well, I don’t know…”

The discussion was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a little blond boy running into the room. He came to a stop at Joslyn’s side, perhaps sensitive to the tension among the adults, and stared at Nyssa quizzically. She looked down into his gray eyes, the same color as her own, and felt as if there were a stone lodged in her throat. She had a brother; she had a little brother they had never told her about, not once mentioned in any of the letters they sent. _We’re so proud of you_, her father had written… but apparently not proud enough to share even the most basic of news.

“Who are you?” the boy said. He looked to be perhaps six years old.

“I’m your cousin, Kiera.” _And you're m__y replacement_, Nyssa thought bitterly. 

“Oh,” the boy said, accepting the lie easily. “Okay.”

Patrick looked uncomfortable; Joslyn looked relieved. Nyssa supposed she should be grateful that they might come to an arrangement where she could sleep with a roof over her head, for _a little while_ at least. But she did not feel gratitude, and the guilt that had been gnawing at her for not telling them about the Fearling now vanished as well. Perhaps that was good, perhaps it would be easier to feel nothing at all.

Her father said, “This is Gavin, your— well.” He paused, flushing. “Our son.”

* * *

Nyssa slept on a bedroll on the kitchen floor, taking up as little space as possible, and she made herself useful. She helped her father with decanting the last winter lagers into casks, and mashing the first batch of the spring ales. She did not let herself think of Ser Merys, who had aggressively looked the other way when Nyssa converted one of the apprentice bathrooms into a fermentation laboratory. It hadn’t taken long for Merys to become an active conspirator who acquired ingredients in exchange for a share of the contraband booze. _No, don’t think about Merys._

On days when there was no work in the brewery, Nyssa collected herbs and made potions—the simple, nonmagical remedies that were always in demand in a poor village. She even taught Gavin how to identify elfroot and spindleweed, how to prepare poultices, how to brew a basic decoction. Nyssa couldn’t tell if the boy actually enjoyed alchemy or if he just liked the novelty of a new person paying attention to him.

_The boy_, not her brother, she couldn’t afford to think of Gavin as the sibling she’d always wanted. It would be a terrible mistake to get attached; Joslyn had made it clear that this arrangement could not become permanent. But despite her best efforts, Nyssa fell into a comfortable routine, and before she knew it the month of Cloudreach had come and gone. By then she’d foraged all the herbs within easy walking distance of the village, but the extra income from her medicines was helping to sway Joslyn into extending her stay, so she needed more ingredients. Nyssa packed an overnight bag and planned a route for an herb-hunting expedition south of Caer Bronach. A few days away would be good for clearing her head, as well—get some distance from the family whom she must not accidentally start to think of as hers.

She was on the edge of the lower village when Fearling perked up like a hound catching a scent. The demon’s interest was so keen that it stopped her dead in her tracks, and before she made out the distant sound of screams, she was already thinking _not again_. Crestwood was under attack.


	8. Flood Gates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyssa gets into deep trouble, and Cullen sets out to find vengeance.

Bloomingtide, 9:30 Dragon

Nyssa ran back toward the danger, a choice which her demon was not a fan of, but whatever was happening it was bad and her family was on the other side of it, and _oh Maker not again_. Hadn’t she lost enough?

_I thought we weren’t going to think of them as our family_, Fearling pointed out sourly.

“Oh, be quiet.”

The village was under attack, and panicked people ran every which way. A thick layer of fog had settled over the river valley in the night, and the pre-dawn gloaming hardly penetrated, leaving the streets murky and disorienting. The smell of smoke was in the air, and she caught glimpses of flickering firelight from burning houses. A scream nearby, abruptly cut off, then an inhuman grunt and shuffle—Nyssa pressed herself into the shadow of a wall and squinted through the mist. She had never seen darkspawn before, but with her first glance, it was not difficult to deduce what the grotesque monsters were.

“Hey, Fearling,” she muttered, “think you could keep the darkspawn off my back without turning me into a quivering mess on the ground? The part where I have to feel whatever’s going on with the mirror is… really not very adaptive.”

The demon seemed to consider her proposal. _Maaaaybe_…

Fearling started doing… well, _something_, while Nyssa’s attention stayed focused outward. Her mind raced—without a staff, her magic wouldn’t last long, so it would be impossible to fight them all. But darkspawn had to come from somewhere, up out of the ground, and maybe she could stop them at the source. They must be emerging from the caverns under the dam, she reasoned, changing direction to run for the rock outcrop where the nearest entrance was.

She had lived her whole childhood in the shadow of Caer Bronach and the dam. The caverns below had normally been kept more or less secured, but there were ways for small bodies to wriggle through, and sneaking inside had been a common dare among the children of Lower Crestwood. Nyssa’s hazy recollection of the layout was clouded not just by the perceptual lens of her ten-year-old self, but by other, sharper memories intruding, too.

The entrance chamber was a slaughterhouse. None of the refugees who’d been living there were left alive, and most of the corpses were so mangled as to be unrecognizable. It was Kinloch all over again. How could this be? Perhaps she had merely hallucinated her escape, and she was in fact _still _in the Circle Tower. No—she shook her head to clear it—this was real, this was happening, people were dying in the streets outside, and she had to deal with it.

Nyssa called on her frost magic and brought her hands together in a clap, sealing the exit with an ice barrier. Frustrated darkspawn piled against it, giving themselves cold burns and gradually draining the magic. Wynne had held a barrier spell for at least ten hours, but Nyssa wasn’t Wynne, and even if she stayed to maintain this barrier, there were other exits from the cave system onto the surface. She should go deeper and find a choke point, figure out where the darkspawn were coming from and seal up that entrance.

Fearling was still doing something with the mirror that confused the darkspawn and made them want to avoid her instead of attacking, so even though the caverns teemed with them, Nyssa’s progress was relatively unhindered. She spiraled down a rickety wooden ramp, weaving back and forth among the darkspawn as they poured up, and then through a narrow tunnel into a larger cavern full of yet more dead refugees. Now and again, she tossed up more ice barriers behind her as she went, hoping it would at least delay the invasion long enough for the villagers to escape.

From somewhere above her came a sonorous clank and grind, followed by a long deep rumble that she didn’t so much hear as felt vibrating in her chest. She was directly under the dam; it could only mean one thing.

They were opening the spill gates.

_No. No! _Rushing back the way she came, Nyssa logically knew she’d never make it out in time. The lower village would be flooded in mere minutes, and even if she got out before the water level reached the tunnel entrance, the buildings along the river bank would be the first to go. The tavern was likely destroyed in those first few seconds.

_Stop!_ the Fearling screeched, its voice seeming to echo in her skull. _There is nothing but death that way. We must save ourself._ The demon wrested control of her body and stuck her feet to the ground as if they were glued there.

“Ugh! You’re wasting time!”

_Down, down is the only way out now._

“I am in charge! This is my body.”

_Self-preservation is the most primal purpose of fear,_ the demon opined.

Precious moments ticked by until Nyssa finally gave in to the demon’s demands, and it gave her back control of her legs. She ran down another wooden ramp, going deeper than she’d ever explored as a child, into a labyrinth of dwarven ruins. There was no time to become properly oriented; instead, she followed the stream of darkspawn, because if they could get into the caverns from the Deep Roads, then she could get out the same way. She squeezed past a heavy stone door and then threw her weight against it. The hinges screeched as it shut, but to make sure no idiot darkspawn reopened it, she called on fire to fuse it closed. Fire was not her specialty, so the spell drained her mana and left her exhausted and quivering.

“Great, now we’re trapped in the Deep Roads,” Nyssa grumbled, panting from exertion. “How is this an improvement?”

_We didn’t drown. We live. _The Fearling sounded almost smug.

There was a short flight of steps leading deeper into the earth, and Nyssa sank down to sit on them, resting her head in her hands. She thought of Patrick, so quick to accept her back, and Joslyn slowly warming to her, and Gavin’s quick smile as he studiously hung herbs to dry, eager for her approval. She choked on a sob; her family, her whole world, all gone. _Again._

What was so great about living?

* * *

Cullen had his armor, he had his sword and shield, he had the use of a horse belonging to the Greenfell Chantry, and he had his rage. These things were enough—they would have to be enough. Rage didn’t help him at night when sleep was a torment, but it proved an excellent fuel during the waking hours. Sometimes it was even hot enough to blot out the self-loathing that twisted in his gut.

The spare dose of lyrium in his saddlebag was a comfort, as well. At Kinloch they would take a small dose twice a week, and the regimen had never left him feeling uncomfortable, except for the spectacularly bad timing of Uldred’s attack. He’d been busy that morning and put off taking his scheduled dose, thinking he’d get to it when his guard shift ended, and then everything erupted into a sea blood spatter and gore and demons, and they were all smiting blood mages as fast and often as they could manage. By the time Cullen was imprisoned inside the barrier, his veins felt rubbed raw, not an ounce of untapped lyrium left in his system, so when the Wardens arrived two days later he was well into withdrawal.

He didn’t deserve to be the one who lived; he was a weak, befouled, ignoble shell of a man. But he had a sword and lyrium and a mission, and he would see justice done or die in the attempt.

The Circle kept detailed records on all its mages, and the records room in the basement had been spared from the sort of blood-drenched ruin the upper floors experienced. Greagoir had finally agreed to send Nyssa’s phylactery from Kinloch, and her file arrived with it; Cullen doubted its utility, because why would a demon care about its host’s past? But when the phylactery flashed in a generally westward direction, he had to admit the obvious place to begin his search was with her parents’ tavern in Crestwood.

* * *

Cullen reined in his horse at the top of the hill and stared. Crestwood was gone.

He’d passed through the village once before, when he was a recruit on a training exercise. Now there was a _lake_ where the lower village should be. His brain struggled to process what his eyes were seeing, but fragile grip on reality or no, he was really quite certain that body of water was not supposed to be there. How…? Why…?

He’d hung the phylactery on a leather cord to wear it like a necklace, resting safely beneath his cuirass, and now he reached a hand up to run his fingers over the knotted leather where it rested against the back of his neck. He felt thrown, as if all his bright, burning certainty had abandoned him. He realized he’d been half-expecting to find Nyssa here, anticipating a swift deliverance of justice. Or failing that, he’d at least thought there would be witnesses to question for her whereabouts.

_Weak and useless, one setback and you’re ready to crumble_. Cullen shook his head, disgusted with himself.

He tugged on the leather cord to check the phylactery before tucking it away again; it still pulsed in a westward direction. So, west it was. Cullen gathered the reins and his fortitude, as well. He would follow that abomination to the ends of Thedas, he promised himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t find any canon info about the location of Greenfell, so I’ve put it in north-central Ferelden. *shrug*


End file.
